Baining

The Baining languages form a small Papuan family spoken by the Baining people of the Gazelle Peninsula in eastern New Britain; its members include Mali, Qaqet and Kairak, each tied to a separate clan identity. The Baining are likely descendants of the Papuan populations who held the Bismarcks long before Austronesian seafarers reached the region around 1500 BCE.

From the seventeenth century migrating Tolai peoples seized the fertile north-eastern coast, and together with centuries of eruptions around Rabaul this pressure drove the Baining into the inland mountains that bear their name.

They are swidden cultivators whose staple is taro, and their most celebrated tradition is the night fire dance, called atut in its Qaqet homeland: dancers wearing towering barkcloth masks leap through the embers of a fire, in ceremonies originally held to celebrate births.